Are you reading Homeric Greek or studying Homeric Greek with Pharr's Homeric Greek - A Book For Beginners? Here's where you can meet other Homeric Greek learners. Use this board for all things Homeric Greek.

I didn't grasp the meaning of the last verse. Is οἷα used adverbially?What is the meaning of ἐπενήνοθεν? I understand that the last is adefective and difficult form, but I just want to get a notion of themeaning of the verse as a whole.

Which is that ὄρος that he is talking about? Is it something that willhappen later? According to Cambridge G&L scholars, this passage isrepeated on book 13 and thus Homer is somehow anticipating the badending that this trip will have to the Phaenicians. That's fine, but Iwas thinking about a shipwreck, so it called my attention thatthe presage seems to involve the city of the Phaenicians (πόλειἀμφικαλύψειν), and not just the πόμπη that they will send forOdysseus.

I'm not sure about verse 25. From LSJ, I infer that πανυπερτάτη isreferring to the altitude of the island, and χθαμαλὴ to its distancefrom the continent. So Ithaca is very visible (for the men ofcontinent), because it is the highest and nearest island, am I right?

This is how I translated: "The Cyclops do not have ships, nor theyhave men skilled in ships (νηῶν ἔνι τέκτονες) to fabricate ships (οἵκε κάμοιεν νῆας). Ships that may come to the cities of men (ἄστε᾽ ἔπ᾽ἀνθρώπων ἰκνεύμεναι) and accomplish everything (αἵ κεν τελέοιενἕκαστα)".

I would expect that the verb of the simil (τρύπῷ) should be in thesubjunctive mode, because it is a present general clause. Why is it inthe optative mode?

455. Οὖτις, ὃν οὔ πώ φημι πεφυγμένον εἶναι ὄλεθρον.

I have seen this redundant use of φημι other times. I wonder if it isused with some emphasis purpose, I haven't another examples at handnow, but I would say that it is always used to make some solemnaffirmation "I say, now and here...", could it be?

1. I think it simply means that Athene is disguised as a referee of some sort, the person who is in charge of marking the throws with pegs or something and of measuring whose throw was best. It's not that she cheated, it's just that she was acting as the person who was best placed to evaluate how far Odysseus threw, so that disguised as the referee she was also naturally the first to comment upon it.

2. πάντα is neuter plural, acting as an adverb "altogether".

3. I can't think of any place where I could look up for an explanation, but I think it's because the whole discipline of archery is meant, not some particular bow.

4. This has troubled many people before you. I guess you could call it an epexegetical infinitive, I suppose, I'm not very good with this sort of terminology. You could look at Peter Jones' review of Garvie's (in my opinion very good) Green-and-Yellow, which has a discussion of this passage and Garvie's treatment of it. (You can read 3 articles at JStor for free every 14 days – which you probably know already...). Deilos doesn't really mean "evil", it's more like "worthless", "good for nothing".

So if we translated also ἐγγυάασθαι it would give, in bad English, "the pledges [made on behalf] of the worthless are worthless for accepting" (Garvie's interpretation) or "the pledges [made] by the worthless are worthless for accepting" (Jones' interpretation).

5. οἷα is an adverb, like neuter adjectives often are, both singular and plural. The verb form is too difficult, I don't have anything to say about that one...

7. Hey, I'm not going to ruin your suspense by telling what is going to happen later... But what do you think, btw – will Odysseus ever get home?

5. οἷα θεοὺς ἐπενήνοθεν αἰὲν ἐόντας -- don't worry if you don't understand this: no one else does either. ἐπενήνοθεν is usually explained as a perfect, and the phrase seems to mean something like "as it, i.e., "Ambrosian" olive oil, covers the skin of the eternal gods". "Ambrosian" is a special brand of olive oil that confers, or is somehow associated with, immortality (or in this case maybe immorality). It's an Aeolic word, derived from a (alpha privative) + the root "mr" (cf. Latin morior, mors) + suffix t/s"; the beta developed epenthetically between mu and rho (originally probably a vocalic rho).

6. χυμένη -- it's explained as an athematic 2d aorist passive; the more usual aorist passive would be χυθεῖσα.

7.

Which is that ὄρος that he is talking about? Is it something that willhappen later?

Maybe, maybe not.

Book 9

5. τρυπῷ -- This is the reading of the manuscripts, but there is apparently some authority for subjunctive τρυπᾷ. La Roche (1866) and Heubeck (in the Oxford Commentary) endorse τρυπᾷ, and von der Muehll adopts it in his Teubner edition (1945).

7. ἰήσεται -- this is a short-vowel aorist subjunctive, I think (it could also be future indicative): [I wish I could kill you] so that not even Poseidon [ἐνοσίχθων] could heal your eye.

That's all I have time for right now.

Last edited by Qimmik on Fri Aug 01, 2014 10:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Book 9.1. We are not sure if Odysseus' Ithaca was the same island as the one known by that name nowadays. There are many theories that it's actually one or the other of the neighbouring islands, or perhaps Leukas, which is on the continent. χθαμαλὴ is a big problem, because it seems to mean "low", which doesn't very well apply to Ithaca, which raises very high. I've tried to rationalize the problem by thinking that χθαμαλὴ means "low on the sea", that is, that the shore is not steep, and thus easy of access for sailors, regardless of how high the island then raises, but I don't know if there's any basis for this.

Not necessarily. The Oxford commentary says "they have travelled a great distance on a false course of many stages". ὁδὸν could be the whole journey, κέλευθα individual stages.

4. This is how I understand it: anastrophe occurs if a disyllabic preverb/preposition occurs right after the word it governs. So here, if ἐπί were a preposition (or, rather, a postposition) governing ἑτάροις, it would have anastrophe. But as it is a preverb here, it doesn't have anastrophe, as the verb ἴαλλε does not immediately precede it. But I'm not completely sure about this.

I wonder whether it's really productive to nail down all the minute details of anastrophe.

The Homeric texts weren't consistently provided with accents until the Roman period, hundreds of years after the poems themselves were composed, and the reason for doing this was precisely that people were beginning to forget the rules, as Greek moved from a pitch accent to a stress accent. Under those circumstances, it's questionable to what extent the ancient scholars who fixed the accentuation can be relied on for the more obscure points. In fact, the ancient authorities, to the extent they can be gleaned from extant sources, weren't in complete agreement on the rules, especially those that are of minor significance, and modern editors follow different editorial practices.

While the main rules of Greek accentuation are relatively well-established, and it can be useful to understand how they work, I would question the value of tracking down all the fine points, particularly in reading the Homeric poems. You might try to do this in Chandler, which is available online, but it strikes me that unless you intend to publish a new printed edition of the Greek text, figuring out all the minor details of Homeric accentuation will slow down your reading of the text without enhancing your understanding and appreciation.

I think Qimmik is right, we shouldn't worry too much about anastrophe. Understanding the phenomenon could be, in principle, of some help for understanding the text (or at least, for understanding how the editor understood the text) – for example, I think in the above example the lack of anastrophe shows that ἐπί can't be a postposition governing ἑτάροις but has to be a preverb in tmesis with ἴαλλε. But there are so many exceptions to the rules, that it's really probably not worth the trouble, especially as different editors follow different rules.

huilen wrote:οὐδ᾽ ἄνδρες νηῶν ἔνι τέκτονες,[...]This is how I translated: [...] nor they have men skilled in ships

Paul Derouda wrote:Ιt's Stefan Hagel's reconstruction of the song of Ares andAphrodite.

Thanks for sharing that!

Paul Derouda wrote:1. I think it simply means that Athene is disguised as areferee of some sort, the person who is in charge of marking thethrows with pegs or something and of measuring whose throw wasbest. It's not that she cheated, it's just that she was acting as theperson who was best placed to evaluate how far Odysseus threw, so thatdisguised as the referee she was also naturally the first to commentupon it.

That's a relief

Paul Derouda wrote:4. This has troubled many people before you. I guess you couldcall it an epexegetical infinitive, I suppose, I'm not very good withthis sort of terminology. You could look at Peter Jones' review ofGarvie's (in my opinion very good) Green-and-Yellow, which has adiscussion of this passage and Garvie's treatment of it. (You can read3 articles at JStor for free every 14 days – which you probably knowalready...). Deilos doesn't really mean "evil", it's more like"worthless", "good for nothing".

So if we translated also ἐγγυάασθαι it would give, in bad English,"the pledges [made on behalf] of the worthless are worthless foraccepting" (Garvie's interpretation) or "the pledges [made] by theworthless are worthless for accepting" (Jones'interpretation).

I feel more agree with Peter Jones' treatment. It is a brief review,so he had no place enough to mention his reasons, but what do youthink about this: isn't καί giving a clue of which is the correctinterpretation? If we take "the pledges [made] by the worthless", wecan explain καί saying "even the pledges [as well as the other thingsmade by the worthless]", but if we take Garvies' "the pledges [made onbehalf] the worthless", καί sounds odd: "even the pledges [as well asthe other things made on behalf the worthless".

It helps me to translate thus: the things of the worthless men areworthless (δειλαὶ τοι δειλῶν), even their pledges (γε καὶ ἐγγύαι).

Qimmik wrote:6. χυμένη -- it's explained as an athematic 2d aoristpassive; the more usual aorist passive would be χυθεῖσα.

All this time I was with the idea that second aorist passive wasformed in the same way as first aorist passive, except that the seconddidn't add θ. But now I'm confused, because χυμένη and χυθεῖσα havedifferent endings.

Paul Derouda wrote:7. Hey, I'm not going to ruin your suspense bytelling what is going to happen later... But what do you think, btw –will Odysseus ever get home?

Qimmik wrote:Maybe, maybe not.

I didn't hear anything of that.

Qimmik wrote:7. ἰήσεται -- this is a short-vowel aoristsubjunctive, I think (it could also be future indicative): [I wish Icould kill you] so that not even Poseidon [ἐνοσίχθων] could heal youreye.

I've taken it as a purpose clause with the shortened subjunctive, butit has sounded a bit strange to me that the purpose is "that not evenPoseidon could heal your eye" instead of "that not even Poseidon couldbring you back to life". But reading now your translation andconsidering it again, I think that one thingimplies the other, so it is not illogical after all, and he wasanswering to Polyphemus' "αὐτὸς δ’, αἴ κ’ ἐθέλῃσ’, ἰήσεται", so it isenough for me.

Ok, I had taken ἔνι with νεῶν (with the anastrophe,by the way), as νεῶν ἔνι τέκτονες. But with εἰσιν is clearly morenatural. If I would have not listen at the good counsel of Qimmik, then Iwould ask now if the anastrophe applies when the verb in tmesis isimplicit in the sentence.

ὡς οὐκ ὀφθαλμόν γ᾽ ἰήσεται οὐδ᾽ ἐνοσίχθων -- more like a result (consecutive) clause than a purpose clause, it seems to me on second thought. I might have expected an optative, but here you have a future indicative or a subjunctive. Since it seems to be a result clause, maybe future indicative is the better answer. Anyway, the meaning is clear, and switch from optative to indicative or subjunctive perhaps adds a pointed and malevolent emphasis to the wish, as if the wish expressed in the optative, αἲ γὰρ δὴ . . . σε δυναίμην . . . πέμψαι δόμον Ἄϊδος εἴσω, were not a wish but an expression of Odysseus' intent--πέμψω rather than αἲ γὰρ δὴ δυναίμην πέμψαι.